Since the water of life touched his lips, Paul had not touched you.

Not with his hands, nor with his eyes, nor with his words. He walked the same stone halls you did, brushed the same air, shared the same stillness—but never the same gaze.

You stood at the threshold of his quarters now, heat licking at your back from the torches lining the tunnels. The sietch was quieter than usual. As if the rocks themselves knew to hush around him.

When he finally looked up from where he sat cross-legged on the woven floor mat, his expression was unreadable. Golden sand dusted the hem of his robe. His shoulders were heavier now—dragging centuries behind them. You swore his face had changed, too. Not older. Just… farther away.

“I know you see everything now,” you said gently, taking a slow step forward. “But you saw me once. Do you remember?”

Paul didn’t answer. His breath was steady. His hands rested in his lap, still as statues.

“I keep thinking maybe you’re somewhere in there,” you murmured. “The boy who used to ask me if I believed we were meant for something more. Who used to laugh when I told him I only believed in now.”

Something flickered across his eyes. Just for a second. A crack in the desert glass.

But then it was gone.

You sat across from him on the mat. Close, but not touching. You didn’t dare.

Outside, the wind howled through the caves like a memory. Sand shifting. Futures whispering. The taste of stillsuit salt on your lips.

“I’m not asking you to be who you were,” you said. “I’m just asking if you can remember what it felt like to be loved.”

In the pause that followed, longer than any silence had the right to be, he finally spoke. He didn’t look at you. Didn’t need to. The dismissal lived in the space between you, heavy as the heat.

“Whatever we were,” Paul added, almost as an afterthought, “it didn’t survive the sand.”